Good morning. Hello. How are you? #497
On "being into" something, with a side of Joe Manchin anger.
Good morning! Hello! How are you this fine morning? Happy Friday, etc. etc. Oh happy October! Happy birthday my dear friends Abby and Emily. I was doing some math last night trying to figure out how long we’ve known each other and it was 22, 23 years-ish. That.. is a while. I hope your birthday is lovely. I hope Teddy is doing just great.
I am feeling better today, thanks. Didn’t really break on the foul mood completely till the evening, thanks to a particularly fascinating episode of Mythbusters, that show is really great, it is really sad about Grant. Emma and I watched a new video that Adam posted, highlighting Grant’s final build, an audio-animatronic Grogu he and some friends made. It was… just amazing.
I listened to a bunch of Dead Can Dance yesterday, in sadness over the cancelled New York show. I gotta say, as the years go by, Brendan Perry really gets me more and more. He was almost a useless appendage, in my mind, back at the beginning of my Dead Can Dance fandom in the 80’s. But somewhere around “American Dreaming” I really started to turn around on him. Saw him solo at the Paradise in ‘99 for his Eye of the Hunter album tour and he was just fantastic. Yesterday, “Rakim” really got to me. As soon as I got to that last stanza:
Favoured son
Fence in your heart
Savoured son
Sins forgotten
I thought of my dad, had a little cry, and started the road toward feeling better. So, thank you Brendan Perry.
“American Dreaming,” though, man. I mean, it should be a terrible song. “Forlorn Sonambulistic Maniacal In the Dark.” What kind of lyric is that? But through the years, it’s grown on me, and now I consider it one of my favorite Dead Can Dance songs. Also! I listened to Anastasis and Dionysus again yestrday, two albums I gave maybe two, three listens to when they came out. Anastasis is awesome I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s just an amazing album. And I like Dionysus a lot more now than when I first gave it a listen.
Anyway, thank you Dead Can Dance for helping me out of a rough emotional spot.
Speaking of great albums, exciting news, Taylor Swift announced that Red (Taylor’s Version) is out November 15th, and she specifically said “including the vinyl” so this is very exciting.
Lots of “new” songs, featuring “new” guests like Phoebe Bridgers, and, like, Gary Lightbody is back to do “The Last Time” again and I really wanna know how that goes down does Taylor call and say “hey can you do this vocal again?” Or are they using the old isolated vocal? And if they’re using the old isolated vocal is that a chink in the armor legalistically about these being all new recordings? Taylor seems really committed to this bit, and I suspect most artists jump when she calls, so I assume good ole Gary stopped work on what I can only assume was the third Reindeer Section album that the world so desperate needs, to go sing “The Last Time” again, thus ensuring the steady flow of funds needed to complete the third Reindeer Section album. Please. I’m begging you, Gary.
In other important teenage, maybe college-age girl news, Hannah is visiting Isabelle on Youtube (well, in the mountains of Washington and on Youtube I guess) and it is very exciting and, man, both of their YouTube videos next weekend are going to be lit. Did Hannah bring the new boy? Will Isabelle and Hannah’s boys get along? Will they all start a band together? Will Hannah help in the garden? Will she help with the roofing on the new garden shed? My god, I cannot wait. This is almost as exciting as Dune.
I’ve been thinking about my NFT mini-rant the other day, and I feel like I have to expand a bit on people “into” things. The whole area is very fraught these days with NFTs, but I think for the sake of theory we can, for the moment, decouple our discourse from the concept of NFTs.
When a lot of people are into something you’re not into, it’s a weird sensation. There is so much going on, and it is all very hard to unpack and discourse is very difficult. You could be “not into it” on a superficial level, like you just heard the concept once, and you don’t really care. Conversely, you could be “not into it” in a much more deep level. Like for whatever reason, you dove in, and extensively learned about the topic at hand. That research, of course, might change your mind, and suddenly you might be into it. Or it may harden your opinion, that you are not into it. In either case, now we have two very different types of “not into it,” so if someone who is into it hears you’re “not into it,” they don’t necessarily know in which manner you’re “not into it.” They may think you’re in cohort A of not into it, having not really researched it. And, being helpful, they may try and eductate you a bit about it. This, of course, risks being seen as condescending if you’re actually in cohort B, and have done your research. I suppose, on top of that, we could layer on people who are actively against it, tagging them as a third, more adamant cohort C of “not into it.” Aggro not into it.
By the same token (token, NFT, get it? Still working on dad jokes I have a couple of years), people into it are also in several cohorts. Some people are into it in a very straightforward, on-its-face manner: they find the topic in question interesting, compelling, and they want to be a part of it. Let’s call this the “good faith” cohort (oh god I’m naming the cohorts now this is getting too complex but that’s the point). Then there’s the “the phenemenon is interesting” cohort, where they might not have cared at the beginning, or maybe they didn’t know about the whole thing, but as the thing gets more and more popular, and more and more people talk about it, these people just find the whole social phenomenon interesting, so they decide they want to go learn about it. They’re the academically into-it cohort. Another cohort could be said to be the partials: They’re into some sub-aspect of the topic at hand, but not the rest. Model collectors who only collect models of submarines. Care Bear collectors who only want the stuffed animals but not the plastic toys, etc. They’ll hang out in those circles, but their interests are restricted to one aspect. I find myself often in this category. I think there’s a lot fascinating about modern cars, but I am not “into them” and there’s a lot I don’t like about them as well, but I will, on occasion, talk car to car people.
Finally, I think there’s an overlaying element to the whole thing — the financial possibilities. I find these people the most challenging to talk to because there’s actually two things going on with the “into it as an investment” cohort (oh god sub-cohorts now??): a) There is money to be made in the topic at hand, and b) they are going to expend effort to make that money. These two are different, but often they are conflated, because there exists a bunch of people who will endeavor to make money on anything that has money to be made therein, and are confused by people who may agree that there’s money to be made here, but don’t want to bother. Thus, while at first blush, these people might be thought to fall into a cohort that is “into it,” in actuality there’s a lot going on with the financial angle. We have people who think there’s money to be made, who decide they want to pursue that money, and are “into it” on its face. We also have people who think there’s money to be made, who decide they want to pursue that money, and think the whole thing is dumb and aren’t actually into it. There are many combinations. Money to be made, gonna pursue that, on-its face into it. Money to be made, not gonna pursue that, also not into it on its face. Perhaps most interestingly, people who agree there’s money to be made, are not going to pursue it, but are also on-its-face into it. People who think there’s no money to be made, but are into it as a social phenomenon that evolves into being into it on-its-face.
And of course these cohorts have overlap, don’t identify everyone, there is nuance in the world and everything is even more messy.
All that being said, I don’t really begrudge anyone in any of these cohort combinations, except, I suppose, people who think there’s money to be made, are going to pursue the money, and are, in actually, not into the thing at all. This is probably a default habitual stand of mine being a Gen-Xer, corporate rock still sucks, etc. etc.
SO. With NFTs. I am in the educated not-into-it camp, with some facets of it I find interesting, especially the technology, and the social phenomenon. The environmental aspects keep me firmly in the not-into-it camp until they are addressed in reality, not just on paper. I grasp that there is money to be made here. I have zero interest in pursuing making money in that category, though I’m not opposed to it falling into my lap.
But most importantly, I do not really begrudge anyone their interest, aside from maybe the pure-cynical money-makers, but even them I don’t really mind too much in this situation, because this is not my arena, so, you know, I’m not that protective of it.
Tangentially, “fraught” is a fraught word and for decades I refused to use it without the modifier “with” and thought it was wrong to use the word stand-alone. I was wrong. But it still sounds real weird to my ears and makes me vaguely uncomfortable.
I am going to close out today with this glorious word-salad from Joe Manchin:
It must be so nice to be Joe Manchin. Just want to clarify here. I mean, sounds good: an expansion of our social programs, “targeted to those who need.” With you there. But, like… shouldn’t we also give them what we need? Isn’t it pointless to help them out with, like, no actual help? So if “those in need” need help, and the help costs $X, shouldn’t we spend $X? Are you saying If $X is over some mythical number in your head — “what is fiscally responsible” — we shouldn’t do it? No, of course you’re not, because you don’t have the balls to come out and say that we shouldn’t help the people who need help. And you just said we should help them! You’re just pretending there is some cohort of “those in need” and helping them costs “what is fiscally responsible” but everything else in the bill is for people not in need, but you’re not gonna say who or what because then people might realize that you don’t actually care about certain people.
It must be amazing to know exactly how who “those in need” are, know exactly what they need, and know, balls to bone, exactly how much it costs and, coincidentally, that number is also exactly the amount of money you are willing to spend. I mean, god, I wish this happened to me. I need groceries. I am only willing to spend $99.99 on my groceries. Well, well, well, quelle surprise! My groceries only cost $99.99! That just worked out so well. Except, of course, Joe wouldn’t even say “I am only willing to spend $99.99.” I this metaphor, he runs his groceries through the scanner, the checkout clerk says “that’ll be $112” and he says “mmm, no, I don’t think I want to spend that.” And they’re like “okay, sure, whatever, just tell me what item you don’t want” and he says “well, I am in need, I need exactly these items.”
Never mind that maybe saying “we’re still in a recession” as a reason for the government to not spend money is, like, not learning the most basic lesson of macro-economics.
I will just leave this here, courtesy my friend Ryan:
Let’s do a mix! Mostly new stuff, a few gems of oldies. Been real into Ned’s Atomic Dustbin again of late. Still working through all the starred tracks from listening to all the Sparks albums. There is a new mix of Pink Floyd’s masterpiece A Momentary Lapse of Reason coming out. There’s a great reissue of We Are DMX. And I was thinking about my high school girlfriend, how much we loved “Pour Some Sugar on Me” even though we were both nominally too cool for that. What a great song. But the new stuff is pretty great as well. Wet Leg is overhyped, but both songs so far are just fantastic. Isle of Wight, man. What a crazy place to be from, says the guy from Fairbanks. HAVVK are great. There’s a new Duran Duran I assume Sean and Jussi are very excited. There’s a new Eels, which is kind of shocking. This new Brandi Carlisle song is fantastic.
It’s Friday! I have it off! I am going to play No Man’s Sky, make bagels, go get my allergy drops from the doctor. That’s it. If I accomplish those three things, I will be happy. Maybe Emma and I will watch a movie tonight woooo.
Have a lovely weekend!